Photography by Henk Fliek

In this second article on my recent trip to Tanzania and Rwanda I thought I’d focus on something I had never seen before: a kill by a big cat. In this case a lioness chasing a group of zebras, picking an unlucky one, managing to kill it and leaving it for her family of cubs and sisters. An amazing experience!

My driver had his sights on a single female lion, slowly walking towards a group of zebras, quite far away. He told me he would like follow the lioness, while the other tourists were happily busy with their mobile phones shooting little critters far away, not realising how they would appear on their images…

Anyway, we continued to pursue the lioness very slowly, at around 100 metres distance, and at some point in time we actually lost her in the bush: their colour actually blends in perfectly in the dry Serengeti grasses… Then, all of a sudden, the zebras started to run in all directions, dust and grass was blowing in the air and I managed to spot the lioness chasing the zebras. The action was so fast and chaotic that I had no real idea where I was pointing my 600mm lens. I had prepared for some form of action: I had my shutter speed at 1/1600 s. and my aperture wide open at f/4 to keep my ISO down, knowing I would still get sharp images, as long as my D4S would be able to track the lioness. But as I didn’t really know where she was, it was all a bit of a gamble. Basically, while I had my D4S shooting away at 11 frames/sec. I could only hope that my D4S was tracking the lioness as I had no clue what was happening… All images are at 100% crop, so don’t expect any astronomical IQ!

Let’s see what happened:

“Acquire target”

“Consider alternatives”

“Ignore alternatives”

“Refocus”

“Increase speed”

“Anticipate direction”

“Steady…”

“Steady…”

“Prepare to engage”

“Use rudder to stabilise”

“Target engaged”

“Increase speed”

“Prepare to capture”

“Target captured!”

“Grab hold”

“Terminate target”

“Mission accomplished”

“In case of any confusion…”

“Allow me to clarify:”

“This is my…”

“My…”

“My precious!”

Article 3 on my Tanzania and Rwanda trip coming soon!

Please note that these images are protected by copyright and are not allowed to be used in any commercial way. If you’re interested in personal use only (like using as personal desktop/tablet/mobile background) then that’s fine; however any other use is prohibited by law.

And as usual, for any questions, comments or feedback, simple add comments below (preferred) or otherwise drop me a note at: enquiry@fliek.com